Season of Death (45 page)

“Do you remember the rest of the fable?”

Ray blinked at Margaret. Except, it wasn’t Margaret. It was Keera!

“The baby grew quickly to be a boy and his grandfather, the chief, became very fond of him. One day the boy began to cry. When the grandfather noticed this, he asked, ‘What do you want?’ The boy pointed to the sun and moon hanging from the ceiling of the house. The grandfather gave them to him. It was only when the boy took them outside and threw them into the sky that the chief realized that something was wrong. The boy then turned back into Raven and flew away. And since then, there has been light.”

Ray considered this. “Uncle said I was like Raven.”

“You are. You are bringing light to a dark mystery.”

Before Ray could ask what that meant, Keera evaporated into a field of pale shadows.

From somewhere in the gray vacuity, she called, “He found something there.”

FORTY-NINE

W
HEN
R
AY AWOKE
, he was confronted by three realities. First, he was still alive. Though he couldn’t feel his hands, feet, knees, or elbows, a thundering ache in his head and a constant, fiery throb in his neck and shoulders told him that he had not yet departed for the Land of the Crestfallen. Pain: the telltale sign of life.

Second, he had survived the night. This was evidenced by a dim, yellow hue that was washing into the burrow like a comforting salve.

Third, for a reason that he couldn’t fathom, Ray felt a rising certainty that he knew why Dr. Mark Farrell had been killed. Not
who
had committed the act. Not
how
the deed had been carried out. But the
why
seemed to have worked itself out during the night.

He tried to reach the Indiglo button on his watch, but couldn’t. Even if he had, he probably wouldn’t have been able to see the face. There wasn’t room to maneuver in the hole. There was hardly room to breathe. Time to extract himself, he decided.

Climbing out proved to be more difficult than climbing in. Hours in the cramped hole had left him stiff. Cold, cramped muscles resisted every proposed movement.

After two minutes of agonizing effort, he managed to pop his head out. What greeted him could have been mistaken for spring. The sun, though not yet visible from the floor of the canyon, had ignited the upper quarter of the trees along the closest ridge, transforming their wet, waning foliage into a glorious firestorm.

Ray took a series of deep breaths before ordering his body out of the hole. Every nerve shouted in complaint. Rolling out onto the ground, he winced, clutching his right leg. The hamstring was burning. It was either pulled or torn, he couldn’t tell which.

He swore at this development, wondering if he could make the village in his present condition, and was about to attempt to stretch the irritated muscle, when he noticed something in the trees a hundred yards east: a dark spot. It was empty of texture and color, and wouldn’t have caught his eye had it not been symmetrical. Looming fifteen feet in the air, the square shadow stuck out from its surroundings. Man-made?

Ray scrambled to his feet, cursing the collection of aches that assaulted him. The world spun around him, sky, trees, mountains and fog merging with a universe of golden stars to form a sickening blur. Bracing himself against a tree, he squeezed the back of his right thigh and leaned his head forward, waiting for the asteroid show to subside. When it did, he squinted at the mysterious object. A cache? He tilted his head gently, looking for legs. If it was a cache … Maybe someone had a hunting cabin out here. Shelter … food?

Without placing much hope in these possibilities, Ray began hobbling toward it. He would check it out, he decided, then start for the river and follow it to the village. This seemed rather optimistic given that he had to stop and rest after a dozen faltering paces.

He had just launched into the third leg of his journey to the proposed cache, when he heard a click. Metallic. Solid. Dangerous. A shiver danced along his back. There was no mistaking the sound of a shotgun being cocked.

The idea of running for it crossed his mind, and he laughed out loud. As if he could manage anything more than a gimpy sidestep.

“What’s so funny?” a bass voice asked.

Chung, Ray realized. Or Chang. Whichever. It didn’t matter.

“On your knees!” The second voice was almost identical to the first, same intonation, same dialect, except it came from the other direction: behind and left. The two goons had him covered in a forty-five-degree cross fire.

Ray knelt in slow motion, groaning at the pain this caused his hamstring. He was messaging it when one of the gunmen shouted, “Hands on your head.”

Complying, he said, “I know about Farrell.” There was a rustling sound as four heavy boots cautiously approached. “I know why he was killed.”

One of the men sniffed. The other cocked his gun.

“I know about Red Wolf. That there was no animosity between the miners and the archaeologists. No sabotage, violence, or antagonism. I know about the fake artifacts.”

Time to hit them with the heavy wood, he decided. “I know that Hunan was trying to drive Red Wolf out of the zinc business. Hunan’s into zinc, and Red Wolf was screwing up the world market prices.” Ray almost added, “Right?”, but swallowed it. If he showed anything less than absolute certainty, he was dead. Which was probably the case anyway.

“Mark Farrell found out that Hunan had shipped in a bunch of artifacts, pottery and stuff, to create a false archaeological site at the base of Red Wolf. He was an expert in Thule culture and saw through the scheme.” He paused, waiting for a bullet or Vibram sole to end the monologue. “And he was going to expose the operation.”

One of the men swore softly.

“So he had to be killed.” Another “right?” almost slipped out. “His plane was rigged to ensure that he never left the Bush alive. The explosive was stolen from Red Wolf and planted by a disgruntled worker to further incriminate the mine.”

There was another curse. Ray was about to push, to tell them that he had phoned or radioed all of this information in, to lie about the imminent arrival of an entire team of heavily armed police and FBI agents. But as he glanced up from the tundra, he saw that the source of their consternation was not his disclosure. It was a thin figure emerging from the trees just ten yards ahead of Ray. Dressed in dirty blue jeans and a torn flannel shirt, the man was standing with his arms crossed, a pair of sawed-off shotguns forming a taut V. Bloodshot eyes glared from beneath a creased, stained cowboy hat.

Headcase!
Ray tried to decide if the nut’s appearance was a blessing or a curse. Probably neither. If there was a gun battle, Chung and Chang would kill Headcase, then turn their attention on Ray, all the more determined to finish him off with a flourish. If Headcase somehow managed to put the two Chinese Godzillas down, the psycho would no doubt relish the opportunity to complete the tour of “La Grange” that had been aborted a day earlier. Either way, the chance of escape seemed nil.

“This here is private property,” Headcase drawled. When Chang and Chung didn’t reply, he added, “Y’all don’t think I can shoot ya both, do ya?” He laughed. “I used to hunt me squirrels back home. Two at a time.” Another laugh. “Now drop them cannons and get yer ugly butts off-a my property?’’

“Back off,” one of the Asians grunted. “We have business with this guy.”

“Think so, do ya?” Headcase spit to convey his disrespect. “Where y’all from anyway? Yer yeller-lookin’. Got slant eyes. Must be from
Chinee.
‘Cept I didn’t know they had nothin’ so big and stupid in Chinee.” His laugh was overcome by a coughing fit.

Ray acted on impulse. Something inside of him shouted, “Duck!” He did, diving for the ground with his arms over his head. Perhaps this movement was a catalyst. Or perhaps Headcase’s belligerence drew a reaction. Or maybe Chung and Chang simply saw the coughing fit as an opportunity to end the standoff. Whatever the reason, in the next instant, even before Ray’s face had impacted the muddy tundra, war broke out: a series of tremendous thunderclaps that reverberated down the canyon like the wrath of God.

Ray’s ears rang with such authority that when an eerie calm returned to the valley, it took him a moment to notice. Slowly the white noise subsided. He could smell gunpowder. His right shoulder was numb. Without lifting his head, he reached a hand up and dabbed at it. The cotton T-shirt was wet and warm.

Before he could fully appreciate the wound, Ray heard voices rising from the battlefield: a soft, mournful groan, a prolonged curse, a foreign word whispered over and over, the hissing laughter of a rabid hyena.

Twisting his head, Ray assessed the damage. His shirt was torn in ragged rows at the juncture of the sleeve and body. None of the abrasions were especially long or deep, and the blood flow was unremarkable. A flesh wound. Still he could already feel the numbness wearing off, the pain beginning to jab into him.

Rolling to his side, he saw that the goon who had been behind and to the right of Ray was down. It was the specialist. He was making a fist with one hand, kicking both legs like an overturned beetle. His rifle was five yards away. After a slow turn to his back, Ray found the man’s partner. Stubby was sitting up, cross-legged, arms in his lap. His mouth was open in a silent scream, the rifle a few feet to his right, within arm’s reach.

Dry branches crackled and Ray looked up to see Headcase hopping to procure the gun. He glanced at Ray, a smile pasted on his face despite the fact that the lower half of his left pant leg was no longer blue but something approaching black. After bending clumsily to retrieve the rifle, he hopped to secure the other man’s gun.

Returning to his place in front of the three downed men, he chuckled. “Told y’all I was fast.” Chang and Chung didn’t respond.

Ray rolled to a sitting position. Between his hamstring and shoulder, he had to bite his lip to avoid crying.

Headcase dumped his newfound arsenal on the ground and began tending to his leg. He ripped the material away revealing a rose-colored blemish between knee and ankle. Taking off his shirt, he used it to soak up the blood, then swore at the wound. Ray wondered if it would slow the nut down enough to allow a getaway.

As Headcase examined the wound, Ray envisioned the next few minutes. Would the psycho shoot them quickly or prolong the event? He thought of Margaret, of the baby that would emerge from her in thirty-six weeks, of the child he would never meet …

“What are you gonna do now?’’ he finally asked.

Headcase finished tying the shirt around his leg, cleared his throat, and spit the result before answering, nonchalantly, “S’pose I’ll have to kill y’all.”

FIFTY